UK’s Palestine Action loses bid to pause ban as terrorist group

By Reuters 4 July 2025, 9:10 pm 5 Edit

Palestine Action activist Lisa Luxx speaks to supporters and members of the media outside the High Court in London on July 4, 2025. A High Court judge in London on Friday dismissed an attempt to derail a government ban of the Palestine Action campaign group under anti-terror laws. (Photo by BENJAMIN CREMEL / AFP)

Pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel campaign group Palestine Action’s co-founder loses a bid to pause the British government’s decision to ban the group under anti-terrorism laws, though the group is launching an urgent appeal.

Huda Ammori, who helped found Palestine Action in 2020, asked London’s High Court to stop the proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist organization, before a full hearing of her case that banning the group is unlawful later this month.

British lawmakers this week decided to ban Palestine Action after its activists broke into a Royal Air Force base and damaged two planes in protest against what the group says is Britain’s support for Israel.

Proscription would make it a crime to be a member of Palestine Action, which carries a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison.

Judge Martin Chamberlain rules against Ammori’s bid to pause the ban, meaning the proscription of Palestine Action will come into force at midnight.

Husain asked for a temporary pause until Monday pending an appeal but Chamberlain refuses, saying: “You are going to have to trouble the Court of Appeal tonight.”

Ammori says in a statement that “We are seeking an urgent appeal to try to prevent a dystopian nightmare of the government’s making”.